Below is an annotated list of children's literature for the elementary classroom. The books are organized by the Six Elements of Social Justice Curriculum Design (Picower, 2007). It is based on work by pre-service teachers at Montclair State University. They have read and reviewed these books and provided insights into how they can be used in K-5 settings.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Same, Same But Different

Element 1: Self-love and knowledge- children learn about their culture

Summary:
Elliot land Kalish are pen pals who live in different parts of the world. While
they think they are so different from one another, they realize that they are actually
very much the same. Elliot lives in America and Kalish lives in India. Each
character is able to express their traditions and lifestyles to one another by providing
information about where they live in the world.

Element 1:
This particular book would be used to apply Element 1 in a classroom because it
allows individuals to express their own knowledge on where they come from in
the world while speaking about their own culture. While learning about
different cultures, although we may find unique differences, we are still able
to find similarities amongst one another. This particular book would be used to
express Element 1 because it allows students to enhance their knowledge of
their own culture, which will result in their own self-love/image. Culture and
diversity would be main topics to speak about on behalf of this book.

Activity: A
follow-up activity to do with a classroom after reading this book would be to
assign each student to a pen pal via www.epals.com.
This website offers a free service to educators to design a particular project
for their class. By doing so, one would be able to access any international
classroom to collaborate with online. Once two teachers are able to exchange
information and cooperate on a learning activity, they will be able to organize
a project together. Additionally, all parents would sign permission slips
allowing their child to participate in the project. The intention of having a
pen pal would be to be able to express themselves and about their culture to
someone in another part of the world. Students would be able to have an
experience similar to the one Elliot and Kalish had in the book they had read
in class. I would then ask each of the students to draw a picture about
something they had learned about their pen pal’s culture in comparison to their
own.